TEHRAN, Iran, June 9
Trend:
In a way, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia and UAE will be trying to compete with Iran in dates market, head of National Association of Iranian Dates (NAID) Mohammad Rashid Farrokhi said, Trend reports citing ILNA.
"Iran's neighboring countries are willing to use alternative cultivation due to their geographic locations. For example, Afghanistan has replaced poppy cultivation with saffron cultivation, and in some areas it's fruit trees," he said.
"It should be noted that Afghanistan has very limited lands for dates cultivation due to its location, so its dates will not be competitive with our country's products," he said.
"As a result, Afghanistan cannot be considered a rival to Iran," he said. "However, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates can be our serious competitors."
He stated that so far, Iran only produces 50,000 to 100,000 tons more dates than Saudi Arabia.
Farrokhi pointed out the need to focus more on Arab countries in Iran's marketing studies.
According to the official, currently Iranian dates are being exported to India, Southeast Asia, CIS countries, Eurasia, Russia and Europe.
Every year, up to 1.2 million tons of various types of dates are produced in 203,763 hectares of land in Iran, making the country the second largest producer in terms of production and area under cultivation and the fifth largest exporter.
